820 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 101. 



trol substantially all economic phenomena, 

 and determine costs, which in turn deter- 

 mine the demand, and the demand now 

 always meets the supply at a price which 

 gives fair business returns on capital. 



R. H. Thurston. 



IN MEMOBIAM: JOHN GREGORY BOUBKE. 



In 1892 the country was startled by the 

 announcement in the papers that Captain 

 John Gregory Bourke, of the Third Cavalry, 

 United States Army, had been assassinated 

 in broad day and in a thronged court-room 

 in Texas, by some friends of the bandit 

 Garza, against whom the Captain was testi- 

 fying and whose forces he had defeated on 

 the Rio Grande frontier. The grief and 

 indignation in the army were intense, and 

 many tears were shed by eyes unused to 

 weeping, for there was no man in the mili- 

 tary service who had friends more numerous 

 and sincere than those of Captain Bourke. 

 But after some days of mourning, our 

 joy returned on learning that the item in 

 the papers was false, that no coward shot 

 had been fired as reported, and that Captain 

 Bourke still remained a terror to the ma- 

 rauders of the Rio Grande. 



Four years passed, and again we were 

 shocked with the sudden and unexpected 

 tidings of his death. But on this occasion 

 the tidings were, alas! true. Now they 

 came from a hospital in his native city of 

 Philadelphia, where, on June 8th, he had 

 succumbed to the sequelae of a surgical 

 operation performed with a hope of saving 

 his life. At the time it was not generally 

 known that he was ill or stood in need of 

 an operation. Such was the ending of a 

 hero who had a hundred times faced death 

 on the field of battle before the bullet of 

 the civilized foe, and, literally, like the 

 Baron Rudiger, ' Before the Paynim spear.' 



Captain Bourke was a soldier by nature 

 and knew no other profession than that of 

 arms. At the early age of 19, while our 



Civil War was in progress, he volunteered 

 as a private soldier (August, 1862), and 

 served in that capacity until the close of 

 the war. He so distinguished himself in 

 this part of his career that he was appointed 

 to the National Military Academy, upon the 

 recommendation of his illustrious com- 

 mander, General George H. Thomas, at the 

 close of the war. After the usual course of 

 four years at West Point, he was graduated 

 in June, 1869, and received a commission 

 in the Third Calvalry, with which regiment 

 he remained until the time of his death. 



During the seventeen years following his 

 graduation he was doing duty on our 

 Western frontiers, in lonely and isolated 

 garrisons, where so many of our soldiers^ 

 in days past, have worn out years of miser- 

 able existence, and in active campaigns 

 against hostile Indians. 



After five years of work in Washington 

 City, where he was ordered on special duty^ 

 connected with his ethnographic researches,, 

 he returned again to service with his regi- 

 ment — not to a dull garrison life, but to th© 

 active, warlike service which seemed to be 

 his usual lot. This time he fought, not the 

 the civilized foe or the savage enemy, but 

 the elusive outlaw of the Mexican border. 

 How well he succeded is a matter fresh in 

 the minds of all. 



In 1893 he had another brief respite from, 

 his military duties, when we all met him in 

 charge of the rare collection in the mimie 

 convent of La Rabida, at the World's Co- 

 lumbian Exposition. When his work there 

 closed he returned to his regiment and as- 

 sumed command of his troop at Fort Riley ^ 

 Kansas. But he had not rested long until 

 he was called again to Chicago, but by a 

 sterner duty than that which called him 

 there before. He came to quell the rioters 

 of 1894 and to protect the United States 

 mails. He discharged his dif&cult duties 

 on this occasion, as usual, with credit to 

 himself and profit to his country. 



